


and the angel who talked with me came again

by sodas



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodas/pseuds/sodas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, the tree tells him, "Only you can decide how to treat yourself. But you are, after all, beloved."</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the angel who talked with me came again

It's windy during Yui's funeral, when Shinji is six years old. This is especially notable because the wind will carry into the night, and tree branches will creak maddeningly out by Shinji's window. He'll know what the sound is yet still find himself afraid, consumed by his blankets and the need to flee the woody moans, but with anxiety rendering sleep unavailable as a means of escape. Tonight, his mother won't come to him during her own sleeplessness. He won't be swaddled in her reassurances, and her voice won't overlay the frightening friction of bark and limbs. She is never going to come home and do the things that mothers do. This, more than her headstone, is what forces the impact of Yui's death into Shinji's comprehension. She is now unattainable, and Shinji has to excuse himself in the middle of the funeral proceedings to be sick.

His father doesn't follow him, probably because Shinji's reaction is disappointing, and, knowing this, Shinji can hardly bear to face him in front of his mother's grave. In fact, maybe he _can't_ face him. That doesn't seem like such a bad decision to make. The surrounding shrubbery is better company than his steely dad and his mother's saddened colleagues, none of whom understand that the world isn't missing _Doctor Ikari,_ it's missing _Shinji's mom._ Shinji washes his face and then steals away to hide behind a bush, but he finds it itchy, and relocates.

The nest of tree roots he comes upon has been growing for a long time: around forty years, although Shinji guesses a hundred. When he folds himself up, he's the perfect size, or the roots are the perfect size for him. Shinji holds his knees to his chest and sits where the roots have gone concave. There's bark against his back, which doesn't feel bad. In fact, it feels so _nice_ that Shinji wants and begins to weep, with his shaky hands half-raised to catch whatever tears abandon his cheeks. If his mother is dead forever, who now will rub his back like this?

The wind is high when someone says, "Are you hurt?" Shinji's breath catches in his throat and his crying stops for his surprise. He looks forward, and around, but he doesn't see anybody, and doesn't know who to expect in the first place. A middle schooler, maybe a high schooler, he guesses. Maybe someone who lost his mom, too. It comes again: "Did you get hurt?"

"No," Shinji says, bewildered. Now that he isn't crying, his tears are drying on his face, and it makes him feel sticky, which is almost awful enough to make him start again.

"Oh," says the person. "You seem like you're hurting."

"Well I..." Looking at it _that_ way— "I didn't get _hurt,_ " Shinji insists, though hesitant. "Just, this place..."

"What about it?" asks the person patiently.

"It's _awful._ " Shinji's just about in awe of this easygoing conversation. Wouldn't anyone think visiting a place like this is bad? He's twiddling his fingers in the dirt near his shoes, looking around again, trying to find the person with such strange nerves.

"Ah, I see." The leaves are stirring pleasantly, and the person sounds like he's just realizing his surroundings. "This is, after all, a graveyard."

"Are you making fun?" Shinji asks, deeply wounded by such a flippant observation. He curls further against the tree as if he could become a knot at the bottom of its trunk. That would be nice. Trees don't cry unless it's sap, and sap is supposed to be good.

"Not at all," the person says easily. He doesn't sound remorseful, but neither does he sound mean, so Shinji loosens just enough to listen."But I hadn't looked around myself in some time. I had forgotten where I was."

It's so absurd - the idea of someone older losing his place like that - and Shinji feels himself prickling. His eyes dart around and he clings to the tree roots with his hands, which have become progressively more earthy as he dug in his discomfort. "How long have you even _been_ here?" he asks with the humiliated indignance of an oft patronized child.

"A while now," the person says.

"What did you _do_ all that time?"

When the person laughs, it isn't cruel, and three birds fly out of the tree. Shinji lolls his head to watch them with his mouth open. "I suppose," the person says, "that I was waiting for a boy to come and sit amongst my roots."

Shinji darkens back to his funeral face, moving to disentangle himself from his tree root seat. "You _are_ making fun," he says, actually angry. It's not right for someone to sound so gentle and be so mean. It feels like a betrayal, and Shinji can't figure out why this person decided to direct it at him. He can recognize a dislike welling up inside him: _Why would you do that to me?_ The worst part is that it's a familiar sort of weight, one that might snap his own ribs in its anger. _Why would you do that to me?_

"No, no. I promise I'm not." Surely the person must _know_ he's being mean, but you'd never guess it from his voice. He speaks like someone who is simply glad to talk. To Shinji, that seems lonely, and he curls his fingers against the bark. The way the tree rustles just then sounds more like summer, like the wind is warm and low. It isn't. Nearby, bare branches clatter, but right here, the leaves only stir.

That's very mystical and all - Shinji's damp lashes are fluttering quick - but his skepticism is still heavy on his chest. Middle schoolers are awful, he decides. He doesn't want to talk to any of them if they're going to trick him like this. "But a tree never talked to me or anyone before," Shinji says. "Why can you?" He almost blushes at himself, because it comes out sounding very earnest; he _wants_ this to be true. He wants the summery sounds of this person and the perfect size of these roots to mean something. He wants them, in fact, to mean _everything._

"Because I was meant to," says the person-in-the-tree. His voice sounds like he could never lie at all. It seems so simple that the doors to Shinji's heart fly right open, and he begins to spill - and it's okay, he thinks, to spill, because the tree will catch him with cupped hands. He burrows in the roots and feels safer. He likes the tree's laugh, and he especially likes when the tree says, "Look; you're perfect right there."

Shinji's father comes to fetch him a little while later. By then, Shinji has told the tree about his problems: his lovely-gone mother, and what a bother he is to his dad. Shinji had stopped crying and started again a couple of times each, and with every fresh spring of tears, he found that tender green leaves would stagger down towards him. Many missed, with the greedy wind taking them for itself, but some reached him, and were soft. _I see,_ the tree says here and there, or, _It's all right._ Sometimes he gives advice, or says things that Shinji doesn't really understand. Once, the tree tells him, _Only you can decide how to treat yourself. But you are, after all, beloved._ 'Beloved' seems like such a strange word to use, but it's warm, too, through Shinji's stomach and chest and mouth. Soothed by this, he's resting his cheek on a tree root when he hears the footfalls of a man. It's the sudden end to a beautiful spell; real life grabs his face and pulls him in too close. _Not yet, not yet. I don't want this yet._ Shinji wishes he could scramble up the tree trunk and huddle in the boughs - he wishes he were a bird. "Father," he creaks, but he doesn't want to look up. The tree rains a few more leaves.

"We're finished here," his father says in such a way that Shinji feels very alone. "Get up."

"Yes, Father," Shinji says, subservient. He wobbles upright, and finds himself filthy, with bits of earth and tree clinging to his trousers: his face goes hot underneath his father's stare. "I'm sorry," he says.

"We're leaving."

_Why don't you scold me?_ Shinji wants to know. He has more tears at the ready, up against his eyelashes, hotter than his cheeks; but he doesn't want Father to see them. "Take care," the tree says, and Shinji looks up towards it sharply, with his lips pursed. "You don't need to cry like that. We'll see each other again, and you can tell me everything."

He's the only one to hear the gentle person-in-the-tree, but he says aloud, "All right." Thick swallow. Hands to eyes. Shinji gathers himself, and feels like breathing again. "All right, Father." When they make to walk away, Shinji - scuffing his shoes, and in a world too big to fathom - thinks that he'll be seeing a great deal more of his father's back. But: _You don't need to cry like that._ Shinji looks over his shoulder, and realizes for the first time that his tree is the only tree he's seen with leaves this season. The others have shed for winter. This one shed only for him.

Kaworu Nagisa isn't always born properly, but he doesn't see why that should deter him.


End file.
